I mentioned a month or so ago that since my engagement, I’ve sort of re-channeled the views I usually apply to politics into everyday living. “Re-channeled” might be a bit much – I can never shake the political bug – more like incorporated. The line between personally applied values and political ideology is even murkier than it used to be for me, and that was a pretty murky line to begin with. Last night, Jonny and I baked a loaf of bread, a small feat that we’re still so proud of that our second loaf is in the preparation stage as I write this (yup, the first loaf was gone in less than 24 hours). We probably could’ve baked it for a few extra minutes, but it was still the best bread I’ve ever tasted. It was also a really awesome way to spend a Friday night, and I’m not quite sure what that says about my sense of fun.
The bread thing was easy. I had been reading Radical Homemakers, got up yesterday morning, asked Jonny if we had any plans that evening, and when he said no, said, “let’s bake bread.” Done. A lot of future decisions have been equally simple. When we get a bigger house, let’s get a hammock. Let’s get an old dog and a young dog at the same time. Let’s limit eating out to once a month. And tradeoffs, like, the fact that I will one day (again, this goes with the bigger house) get tacky, inflatable, outdoor Christmas decorations in exchange for Jonny getting tacky, inflatable, outdoor Ravens decorations any time they make the playoffs. Fair deal.
Many people watching tonight can probably remember a time when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown. You didn’t always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors. If you worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent paycheck and good benefits and the occasional promotion. Maybe you’d even have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company.
That world has changed. And for many, the change has been painful. I’ve seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories, and the vacant storefronts on once busy Main Streets. I’ve heard it in the frustrations of Americans who’ve seen their paychecks dwindle or their jobs disappear — proud men and women who feel like the rules have been changed in the middle of the game.
And so, our government will set an agenda on behalf of those who have been most impacted by technology and the new economy: workers in the manufacturing sector, small business owners, independent farmers. Or not. Apparently, those losers should just accept that the world has changed; the only thing government can do for them is spark economic growth, educate their children, and prevent balancing the budget “on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.” Which is helpful, seeing as how those formerly “proud men and women” who populated the middle class can now be counted among Obama’s “most vulnerable citizens.”
I want to comment on this month’s Atlantic Monthly piece by Chrystia Freeland, “The Rise of the New Global Elite,” but before I get to that, I thought it might make for nice companion viewing to link to the new Audi ad.
Luxury isn’t “out” as it was in the late ‘60s, or “in” as it was in the ‘80s, it has just progressed to something more innovative and less stuffy. The old aristocracy has given way to the new meritocracy.
Onto the Freeland piece…
The first ten or so pages are illustrative and full of rich anecdotes, but really nothing new. The “global elite” are different from the old aristocratic elite in several ways: 1) they are interested in the creation of wealth as well as the consumption of wealth (as opposed to the exclusively consumption-focused aristocrats); 2) they have no ties to place or nation; 3) most were not born rich; 4) they prefer to set up their own Big Ideas philanthropies, rather than donate to existing charities; and 5) they have a higher self-regard… after all, it was their “hustle and intelligence” that earned them a spot at the top.
About halfway through Obama’s speech on Wednesday – I think it was just after he used the phrase “moral imagination” – I turned to my fiancé and said, “You think Palin is thinking, ‘wow, this is what I should have said.’” In truth, probably not. For such a thought to cross her mind, she would have to first hear what someone else said, something I’m not convinced she has ever done. After her resignation as Governor, Peggy Noonan wrote that Palin “displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why,” that she had “ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits,” and that she was emblematic of an “entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.” In the year and a half since that column, I’ve never seen anything from Palin that could refute that.
Speaking from the podium Wednesday was a President; even Glen Beck said it. It was the message from his inaugural speech, when, quoting from scripture, he declared that “the time has come to set aside childish things.” This time, he challenged us to live up to the democracy imagined in the mind of a martyred child. With just a few changes in words, he could’ve gone wrong, sounding like a father scolding his squabbling children. But it was clear that he wasn’t just challenging us, he was challenging himself. And that inclusion eliminated any sense of preachiness from his comments. He exceeded the moment, even in an awkward atmosphere of whooping college students.
Outgoing Ohio Governor Ted Strickland was one of my favorite elected officials to lose office last month. And I loved 95% of his comments in an interview he gave to Sam Stein today. From Huffington Post: “I think there is a hesitancy [among Democrats] to talk using populist language,” the Ohio Democrat said in a sit-down interview with The Huffington Post. “I think it has to do with a sort of intellectual elitism that considers that kind of talk is ...
There are some good things to be said about absorbing periodic electoral “shellackings.” For one thing, it gives the shellacked party an opportunity to reflect a bit, to let internal battles sort themselves out, to bring new leadership to the forefront. The Democrats won’t officially have new leadership; Nancy Pelosi won her bid for Minority Leader quite handily, and the rest of the leadership team will remain intact even with a couple of title changes. But even the self-described “quixotic” ...
I’m always drawn to these kinds of studies, even though they’re never really insightful. This one mainly backs up what everyone already knows about geography and age demographics among partisans (is it really any surprise that Democrats (read: young urbanites) favor Google while cable TV reigns in what are most likely Republican (read: older, more rural communities)? And is it more likely that Republicans like Lowe’s because they live in areas in which home improvement is common or because of ...
Image via Wikipedia I apologize in advance for the liberal use of quotes in this post, but I wanted to add a few thoughts on the Lind piece I linked to yesterday. Lind makes the point that the reason for the pro-populist/anti-statists and the anti-populist/pro-statist alignments are a matter of the “ethno-religious” bases of each Party. He breaks down the demographics: In the post-New Deal system that exists to this day, the Republican Party is a neo-Jacksonian coalition whose base ...
I’ll probably have more thoughts on this later, but for now, just wanted to link to today’s Michael Lind piece. It’s a good work overall, but I would point out the only political figure I know of who self-describes as a Jacksonian populist is Jim Webb, not a 21st century Republican. Whether or not Webb is the exception that proves the rule is debatable. Like I said, more on this later, particularly the role of demographics in Lind’s piece…
I don’t mean to pull a Colbert-style “Better Know a State” here, but I’m a little surprised by how under-the-radar this West Virginia Senate race has been. Figured a bit of background was useful for context. From a political standpoint, West Virginia has always been one of the more interesting states. It was the only state formed during the Civil War, breaking away from Virginia to stay with the Union. Whether or not it can be counted as a Union ...
It’s not often that I find myself in agreement with Michael Gerson, but I thought there was some truth in his column today. He starts off quoting Obama: “Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument [do] not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country is scared.” Then to Gerson: “Obama clearly believes ...
In one way, I agree with Mark’s post. There is nothing inherently liberal in the Democratic Party, and nothing inherently conservative in the Republican Party. All of the most common ideological terms – conservative, liberal, reactionary, progressive – are at best, convenient descriptions of pluralities of Party members at this particular point in history. Useful in casual conversation, but frustratingly contradictory for anyone who thinks about it for more than 5 minutes. But where I disagree is with the idea ...
I’m a bit late to the great education debate, which is unfortunate because I did have a few thoughts on it. My own take isn’t really connected to the need to create a more purposeful mission for high schoolers or how to battle back against the cruelty of kids, but just the more basic question of the mission and importance of formal education. It’s becoming something near conventional wisdom that greater educational opportunity is the silver bullet for the future ...
First, many thanks to Will for spotting this article and passing it along my way. It’s one of the better articles I’ve read in some time. Hogeland’s main point – that liberalism has almost always been, and may always continue to be, at odds with populism – is an idea I’m more open to now than I have been in the past. It’s becoming harder for me to reconcile a fundamentally nostalgic and irrational (in the Pournelle chart kind of ...
I’ve been out of the loop a bit these past couple weeks, helping out peripherally on a local primary race, and afterward just needing a few days to kind of process some thoughts without writing. I mostly dodged political opinion pieces during my little hiatus, but did manage to catch Glenn Greenwald’s column on the “misguided reaction to Tea Party candidates,” and liked much of what he wrote. I can’t fully agree with him that the Tea Party is just ...
This poll analysis confirms a lot of things that have been fairly obvious for quite some time: 1) young voters are liberal on social issues and lack a go-to ideology on economic issues; 2) young voters are less partisan; 3) young voters were more motivated by the campaign of Barack Obama in 2008 than they were the principles of the Democratic Party. As someone who supports a strong party system, one point in here is particularly jarring: the re-consideration of ...
Complete change of topic… Like many people, summers blunt my level of attention to day to day political news. But now it’s September – just a few days from Labor Day – and the calendar is kind of getting me back in campaign mode. So, just for fun, a few of my personal favorites/least favorites of American campaign history. Feel free to play along and offer your own picks. Campaign Ads Best quirky political ad that would play even better ...
I’m fascinated by the liberaltarian conversations here and elsewhere and, as an outsider, more than a little bit jealous. Whether or not the potential movement will be realized in the short term is still to be determined (although I tend to think based on demographics, it’s probably a good bet). What I find so interesting is that it’s a political philosophy so far along that it can already be traced back historically, measured against established ideas, compared to movements in ...
My favorite spot to view him is standing by the Pagoda looking East over Patterson Park at night. There, staring back is the neon face of a smiling, mustached, one-eyed man – often mistaken for the man on the Pringles can – looking over the city that claims him. Watch him for a minute and he winks his one eye. Mr. Boh, as his neighbors know him, is the keeper of the unofficial municipal beer of Baltimore, Natty Boh (brewed ...
There’s a quote about Carl Jung that I’ve come across a couple of times and shamelessly stolen every chance I’ve had: “We live a double life whether we know it or not. We live our own life and we live the life of our time.” Economists are now warning of a double-dip recession, even though most people can’t tell we’ve reached the heights that make the second dip possible. A lousy economy is no longer news – it’s just mundane ...
Libertarianism in a Nutshell I fancy meself a South Park Republican, no prig he, more likely to laugh at the ineptness of somebody trying to offend him than to be offended. A Piss Christ or a Virgin Mary made of elephant shit is so last century it’s hardly worth the bother of feigning outrage.
But I do confess that our friends and allies in Japan have come up with something I’m compelled/appalled enough to hide behind a link.
The only consolation is that there’s really nothing to be done for an encore. ( 48 comments)
Miss Mary 
Will Truman 
Mali Hawthorne 
Snorkle 
b 
areawoman